A Day in Tull's life
(Live Across America in 1 day)
Jethro Tull presents the
1987 "heavy metal album of the year" tour (Crest of a Knave?????? NOT Metallica.)
Boy did Ian and Martin (and myself) ever get a good chuckle out of that choice!
Ian Anderson: flute, acoustic guitar and vocals
Martin Barre: guitar
David Pegg: bass
UNICEF benefit concert (acoustic, complete 3 song set)
United Nations Building NYC, NY. USA (1 P.M.) thanks to showtaper for UNICEF set location correction
November 21, 1987
performance quality: B+
recording quality: B+
and
Ian Anderson: flute, acoustic guitar and vocals
Martin Barre: guitar
Don Airey: keyboards
David Pegg: bass
Doane Perry: drums
the Centrum (now called the "D.C.U." center)
Worcester, Mass. U.S.A.
November 21, 1987
performance quality: B to B+
recording quality: B to B+
total runtime: 131:45 (minutes/seconds)
total runtime for Worcester show: 116:15
setlist:
disc 1 69:22 (as listed below)
UNICEF benefit concert (with Anderson, Barre and Pegg)
A: skating away L.A. 4:00
B: Budapest L.A. 7:23
C: serenade to a cuckoo L.A. 4:05
Worcester part one 53:52
1: songs from the wood 6:20
2: thick as a brick 6:57
3: steel monkey 4:15
4: farm on the freeway 6:45
5: heavy horses 6:54
6: living in the past 4:19
7: serenade to a cuckoo 4:59
8: Budapest 13:19

disc 2 62:22
9: hunting girl 5:36
10: mandolin, keyboard and drum solos 10:11
11: wondering aloud 1:56
12: skating away > 3:25
13: jumpstart 8:22
14: band introductions 2:20
15: too old to rock and roll 6:09
16: aqualung 7:34
17: locomotive breath > thick as a brick reprise 7:00
18: encore break 1:52
19: wind up 7:53

lineage: UNICEF concert recorded with unknown deck/ reciever
Worcester concert: Realistic mini mikes >
Sony D-6 cassette deck, dolby off >
(from here lineage is same for both shows)
Maxell XLII-S cassette >
played on Naka. 125 into soundforge 4.5 >
FLAC 6 > torrent. A Tullnut Production.
And another in glasnostrd19's masters of rock series.
masters of rock from master audience tapes.
first posted as above in 2008. One correction was made
to the same flac files for 2009 posting: a
flac > wav > flac (sb's aligned) re-conversion
to remove the sb errors. info corrections made for 2012 posting.
a this and that tullnut production (in a few ways.)
Do not sell this recording.
(You cannot put a price
on a knave anyway,
that's prostitution.)
Trade freely, losslessly and gaplessly.
Do not sell this recording.
Share freely, losslessly and gaplessly.
comments:
You think it's just a cheap catchy gimmicky title for a torrent? No, it's not. This
is so titled because on this day Martin, Dave and Ian had a previous engagement for
a national concert broadcast, before playing the main attraction of this torrent,
the Worcester concert. These shows both happened on the same day, and both are complete
sets from Tull. Both are from master tapes- a friend recorded the UNICEF set and gave me
the master tape, and I recorded the Worcester show. Ian remarks about having to catch a
plane to Boston in L.A. and upon arrival for his 3rd visit to the Worcester Centrum,
still mentions Boston, not Worcester. apparently that set was in NYC according to sources,
seems hard to believe they'd play LA and Worcester on the same day.
It's not a real high energy show, but yes folks, those of you who heard "Crest of a Knave"
named the "best heavy metal album of 1987" by one of the big authorities on those things,
this is your tour of the 1987 "Heavy Metal album of the Year".
Even though I like this Tull album better than Metallica, that was a crazy choice.
Metallica IS heavy metal, and sometimes pretty good at it. Jethro Tull's last "heavy metal"
album, the only one Tull ever had, was one of the first heavy metal albums ever released by
anyone- "Aqualung", in 1970, and even that only had 3 "heavy metal" songs in it- Aqualung,
Hymm 43 (complete with a flute) and Locomotive Breath, which remain probably Tull's 3 biggest
hits ever. Other than those, Jethro Tull never tried to be a heavy metal band, (don't let
those "heavy horses" of 1978 fool you either) and with several fine drummers including the
one heard here (Doane Perry), the only "heavy metal" drummer Tull ever had was Barriemore Barlow,
who did not play on the original Aqualung tour, but made it a far bigger hit than it ever was
with the original Clive Bunker (who was no slouch either) because he had that heavy sound.
This band would have (and did) well at the "A Little Light Music" of a few years later and
sharing airplay with the likes of the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and the Steve Miller Band.
Maybe the steel monkey song threw the voters off in that selection, or the heavy horses,
so they must be heavy metal. These concerts were before that selection, but Ian found it all
quite amusing. The road crew likes to get off by doing this "heavy metal" act where about 20
of them have guitars on and pretend to do the Martin Barre Strut, dancing around on the stage
and having a jolly good time during "Jumpstart'.
As far as I can tell, Martin provides all the guitar in this part, but it was a fun visual gag.
When Martin Barre is playing guitar, you don't NEED anybody else playing a guitar. He's great.
I don't ever recall Jethro Tull having a second guitar (or needing one) other than Ian playing
acoustic. Martin is one of the greatest, maybe even the greatest guitarist I've ever heard in
a rock group. His accompanying players have been with only rare exceptions, exceptional players,
over the years, but in my view and ears, Martin is the main attraction at a Tull show and has
again and again rose to the occasion for Worcester shows under (for most people) heavy duress.
In this case, a plane flight from NY after the short UNICEF show, for a regular full length
show in Worcester. You want my description of what Tull plays? Light to medium, sometimes
a bit heavy metal. There isn't really a good word for it, especially this album, but what
they're trying to say is it's a good album. Not their best, but it's got some good songs.
I like Farm on the Freeway best on that album, and they do that well here. Jethro Tull is one
of the only bands that ever played that could sleepwalk through almost a 2 hour concert, and
have it sound as good as this does. The recording came out well too, not much crowd noise at all,
especially for a Worcester Tull show. Probably the least inspired of the 5 Worcester shows,
since the boys were quite short on shuteye, but also the clearest recording. Isn't that the way
it usually works with concerts? Fortunately, Jethro Tull are rock and roll diehards, and
this was still an enjoyable show for my only view of the knave in 87. Other than maybe a bombing
or worldwide natural catastrophe, nothing much seems to slow them down from putting on a good show.
Jethro Tull has also been chosen for a few honors on my former Glasnost Radio show. BIG honors.
Like having about 14 hours of commercially available entries (original songs, not including any
"extended versions") in our "hall of fame" playlist, or equal to that of Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin
and the Who. (combined)
Only John McLaughlin comes anywhere near that.
And being Boston Garden's most enduring (and hottest) performers from 1973-1980.
(this choice is obviously far from totally impartial decision, it should be noted)
They're also the only band I've ever seen who didn't get to a third song in a concert until just about
2 hours into their concert. That's nice- when it's Passion Play followed by TAAB.
And last but far from least, 5 Centrum shows. 5 GOOD centrum shows.
I've seen Tull live about 15 times. I've NEVER seen a bad Tull show, or anything close to one.
For their great achievement, we honored Tull (not with any of them present- I wish) with our own version
of the "lifetime achievement award" selecting Jethro Tull as the most consistently good live rock band
during the entire running of "Glasnost Radio" show on WCUW 91.3 (late 89 to early 2001) and as
"Diehards of Rock", both for consistently excellent live performance and one of the longest lists of
officially available great songs any artist ever recorded. It's been over 40 years of Tull now, and I've
been hearing it most of that time. This standard would hold through the 95 tour, brilliant performance
in concert and on their released studio CD's has made Jethro Tull one of the highest standards there is
of good rock. It's not all rock, and very little of it is heavy metal, but Martin Barre may be the most
underrated guitarist in the last 40 years. As far as I'm concerned, he was John McLaughlin's closest competitor,
for the honor of greatest guitarist ever during this time. Martin always has had an A performance EVERY time
I've seen Tull live. Not just on the A tour which was another A for Martin. (here included). They were tired.
But Martin sure didn't play like he was tired! This guy could play guitar in a coma, and sound good at it.